And spit...

Well, it's been another day working on the novella. Strange that the thing's only going to be 15,000 words long. That's a tenth as long as a normal Logan McRae book. Which means it should take a tenth of four months to write. Right? No: wrong. I'm two days into it and already about two fifths of the way through. Which worries the hell out of me.

How the hell can I be a third of the way through a book in two sodding days? Not right. Not right at all.

It probably explains why I'm not sleeping though: worrying about how quickly this one is going. When I was away at an conference I had a chat with an proper crime writer and he said that the difference between quick and slow - when it came to writing - was the tense and the person. First person present being quick as a greased monkey. I normally do third person past, which has the same naught-to-sixty factor as a Reliant Robin full of bricks. That've been wrapped in a blanket of lead.

So maybe that's the reason I'm feeling discombobulated about the current book.

Or maybe it's the swallows?

They're remarkable creatures: they flit back and forth from Capistrano every year. That's over one and a half thousand miles from where I live. And yet, every year they turn up, darting and swooping through the air, dancing the dance of summer. Beautiful. They come every year and sit on the telephone cable outside Casa MacBride, telling tales of sunny climes and winter in the Mediterranean.

And cheeping outside my fucking bedroom window at half past four in the morning. Making me lumber out of bed in my jammies to swear a blue streak at the flying cock-weasels.

Much though I love them, I kind of wish they'd bugger off back to Capistrano, shut the fuck up and stop shitting on my bloody car!

And the little sods are too quick for Grendel to catch. Little winged, feathery rat bastards.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAArgh!

Just a quickie

I was going to do a big travelogue-style post about my recent bout of gadding about -- I feel much better now I've stopped taking the tablets, thanks for asking -- but instead I have been busy planning an novella. Which is strange territory for me. Nowhere near enough words to be a novel and far too many to be a short story. A sort of grey, undiscovered wilderness of indistinctness. And strange smells.

But right now my whiteboard is clarted with little squiggly lines and words like 'castration'... OK, so none of the other words are like castration, but you get the general picture. Come to think of it, there aren't many words like castration. Well, maybe 'information' and 'revelation' and 'radiation' and 'decapitation'... actually, now I come to think about it there are loads of words like castration. But only one of them means lopping off someone's sinful man-winky.

Anyway, the whole point of this is that I've not had time to write up my various travels to bore the hairy arse off you.

In the meantime though, if you're in the market for hairy arse removal you can find me at the Writers' Dock, where I'll be hanging out all week, telling people to try the shrimp, singing a medley of Frank Sinatra's greatest hits in the style of Kermit the Frog, and answering writing-themed questions. Such as who would win in a fight: John Rickards or Val McDermid?

Intellectual like a fox, that's me.

Things and stuff what is also stuff, but not necessarily things...

I got the boat up to Shetland, being as I am a stink old romantic when it comes to things like that - cue spirited renditions of A Life On The Ocean Wave, What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor, and In the Navy (if you're that way inclined*) - and I came across a copy of the Daily Mail's Sunday magazine** someone had left behind in one of the ferry's bars. And there, nestling in its pages, like a sleepy hamster, was a review of BROKEN SKIN:

"As with all MacBride's gritfests this is brilliantly written, world-class stuff framed around a solid, enduring character."
Ah, be still my swelling ego. Then it latches on to a recurring theme:

But for me the real hero is carnapcious lesbian DI Steel - a woman with the kind of attitude and dialogue that would befit the long-lost love, child ofBilly Connolly and Joan Rivers.
Mr MacBride, we demand a spin-off series."

So it looks like I'm definitely going to have to kill DI Insch off in the fourth one. Or maybe I'll kill off DI Steel, just to be an utter bastard?

Anyway, in less egotistical news the thing last night with readers' groups seemed to go OK - especially one question that's going to have be going back and looking at how I write a couple of my characters and trying to figure out how to do a better job with them - and there was even a bit of 'going to the pub' afterwards. Which can't be bad.

Tonight it is the big book and heuch-fest at the Library. Which should be fun. I can't decide whether or not to have a sing-song as part of my bit, or not. Hmm… tempting.

* Incidentally, I've never had a job with it's own theme tune. How cool would that be?
** But not in an oo-er-Missus! Kind of way.

Shetland, Sunny Shetland...

When I told people I was coming up her they all made that strange 'sucking air through the teeth' noise beloved of car mechanics, plumbers and jobbing builders the world over. "Hmmm," they said, "It's always cold in Shetland." They said, "Always cold and windy. You'd better take LOTS of jumpers."

And what do I get? Sunburn. My head is like unto an very attractive beetroot. Kind of a sexy bearded beetroot with little pink eyes and a slightly glazed expression from not sleeping a wink on the ferry. It's very shiny too.

You know what: Shetland is bloody beautiful. I'll bore the arse off you all with my holiday slides when I get back and can winkle them out of my camera, but for now let me just say: blue skies; puffins; white sandy beaches; paddling in the sea; and picnics. And that was just on day one.

OK, so today it's blowing a force 'OH JESUS...' and everyone's walking about at 45 degrees to the horizontal, but the sun's still beating down.

Nice place, nice people, and I'm definitely going to have to be on my best behaviour on the off chance I get invited back. When I'll have to take She Who Is Insanely Jealous That I Got To Go To Shetland On A Wee Boaty While She Had To Stay At Home And Work*

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go traumatize some fish. That'll teach them to lack rudimentary legs and functioning lungs. Can't be arsed evolving, eh? Lazy (and tasty) bastards.

*hey, I'm working too: honest! *ahem* Looks away, not able to meet anyone's eye ;}#

Shetland Ahoy!

Well, that's me bound for a good bit further north than I am at the moment. Shetland beckons, and who am I to resist the call of a whole island?

If you're of a mind to be up there (like, perhaps, that's where you live -- or perhaps you're an eccentric millionaire with some sort of doomsday submarine and fancy a quick break from trying to take over / destroy the world) then you can catch me on...

• Monday evening (21st): doing my thing with local writers' groups in a top secret location.
• Tuesday evening (22nd): doing something altogether less wholesome with local reading groups. I'll also be talking about the work of Mark 'And I would Have Gotten Away With It Too If It Hadn't Been For You Pesky Kids' Billingham* -- hence the 'less than wholesome' part of the evening.
• Wednesday evening (23rd): it's a public event in Shetland Library from 7.30pm, where there'll be little old me, local writers, musicians and a jolly good time had by all. Hurrah!

Then on Friday (24th) I'm in Peterhead doing a series of workshops for Adult Literacy tutors.

And on Saturday (26th) it's the great Falkirk Reader's Festival: Slaughter At The Stadium! It's Lin Anderson, Alex Gray and me providing a feast of talks, questions, and writing workshops, "aided and abetted" by Dr John Clark, forensics expert from Glasgow University. (Saturday, 26 May 2007, 12:30PM - 5:00PM, Tickets £5 from the Steeple Box office or any Falkirk Library, and for further details you can telephone: Falkirk 503605/504242) How much more fun could someone possibly have? With their clothes on. And no jam.

All this means that I'll probably be incommunicado till next Sunday, when I'll probably be too knackered to do much more than groan and make strange smells.

See: it's all go.

* Oh come on: don't you think he looks a little bit like scary old** Mr Wilson who used to run the fun fair?
** Not that Mark is old -- he's matured like a fine stinky cheese -- I'm just say he looks like the sort of person who'll dress up as a headless horseman just to spite nosey teenagers who should really be off shoplifting, collecting ASBOs and having drunken sex.

Where Am Lovely Stuart?

Him am not hiding. Him am in GLASGOW! Well, not right at this minute. Unless you're reading this tomorrow -- my tomorrow, not yours (if you ARE reading this in your tomorrow, can you email me the winning lottery numbers when they come up? Ta.) -- in which case I might well be. Is it between the hours of 11:16 and 16:42? If it is, and it's Saturday then I'm in Glasgow.

Unless you're in one of those strange non GMT places, in which case you'll have to do the working out yourself. I'm not your mother, after all.

Anyway, the point of all this, before you started asking bloody strange questions about time travel, is that I'm going to be scrawling my merry way through copies of BROKEN SKIN what people have bought in Glasgow's very own COSTCO!

So, if you're occupying the same general location and time zone, why not come along and marvel at my beardieness? I'll be the shifty-looking bloke trying to eat his own weight in flumps at: COSTCO, 15 Cobden Rd, St. Rollox Business & Retail Park.

Don't say you haven't been warned.

'Bom chicka wah wah' my hairy arse

Yes, I know I had a rant last time, but tough. My dander is well and truly up today. Like a big flag on small pole*. I have been buying Lynx deodorant for years, not for it's questionable aphrodisiac qualities -- let's face it the thought of anything you squirt up your armpits turning you into a magnet for bikini clad women who need to eat more pies is pretty damn unrealistic** -- but because it comes in flavours that don't actually make me gag. But now they've gone all cleverclogs and come up with a strange twisty cap thing that you've got to twist before pressing the bit on top to make with the squirty.

Ha! So what happened to my one? Two squirts in, the little plastic nozzle bittie slipped down behind it's sodding sleeve. Even digging at the thing with a pair of scissors only managed to partially recover it, meaning that every time you press the button half the spray goes off at a random angle nowhere near your armpit -- like into your eye -- and the other half oozes down the inside of that bloody plastic sleeve, and from there all over your fingers.

And believe me when I say that the chemical stuff is long bloody lasting: eight or nine hours of hand-washing later and both paws still stink of 'Bom chicka wah wah'. I feel like Macbeth's wife: "Out, out damn Lynx!"

Worse yet, this means that I've gone through the whole tin in half the usual time, and only had the underarm benefit of about a third of it. This morning I got one armpit. What bloody use is that? Don't these people know I'm an international self-satisfied superstar? How can I maintain my sex god literary status with only one deodorised armpit? I'll have to talk to people sideways.

Has anyone ever met a writer, then gone back to tell their mates, "Oh yeah, he was really nice, had a great beard, and the most wonderful BO I've ever sniffed. Only on the one side though, his other side smelt normal."? I don't think so.

I am never buying the bloody stuff again. Instead I shall move on to something with slightly more realistic adverts that don't irritate the crap out of me.

And now we've got that out of the way, some news what does involve all of me and not just my oxters:

1. Those strange people over at the Pulp Pusher have an interview with me and a Mr Ray Banks up on their website at the moment.
2. COLD GRANITE has been longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. Lots of really good books on the cards this year, so I doubt I'll be in with much of a shout, but don't let that stop you throwing away as many votes in my direction as you like -- vote now and vote often, and if caught blame Dan Brown (you know the drill).
3. BOOK NUMBER THE FOURTH she finished. Well, the first draft is and it's winging its cheery way through the ether to my editorial ninjas, my unusual agent, and my trusty test reader. Hoo-bloody-ray! Now I can relax next week when I'm in Shetland, instead of lugging my laptop everywhere and worrying about getting the damn thing done.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going tear off all my clothes and run around the back garden shouting, "Finished! Finished, do you hear me? FINISHED! Bwahahahahaha..." until the police come and take me away.

* And no, I don't meant that in a dirty way you perverts.
** If you lived in the Artic Circle and wanted to attract seals rather than skinny women you could probably have a fair bit of success rubbing herring into your intimate underarm area. Not that I've tried this myself. *ahem*

DON'T BLOG ANGRY! DON'T BLOG ANGRY!!!!

I'm tempted to recount my current travails and bastarding nightmare experience trying to find out what's happened to a parcel sent from sunny Aberdeen to Vancouver using the delight that is FedEx. But I shan't. My blood pressure doesn't need to be any higher. If it was the top of my head would explode, killing everyone in a three mile radius with foul-language-fallout. They would have to seed the earth with salt and erect those fetching signs with skull and crossbones on them.

Let us leave it with the mysterious phrase, "Where the sun don't shine." and move on to other, less contentious things. Such as...

Mr Guthrie* and I have been reviewed -- well, our Saturday lunchtime Word 07 thing has been. The Press and Journal starts off telling everyone how good Rosemary Goring was, then it's all:

"Saturday lunchtime saw King's College auditorium literally packed to the rafters eagerly awaiting Aberdonian crime author Stuart MacBride and Edinburgh's Allan Guthrie.

Both read their latest offerings from the realms of Scotland's thriller underworld.

More of a theatrical performance than a literary reading, both novelists took particular pleasure in teasing the crowds with their dark humour, sound effects and imaginary guns."

And then it's on to Roddy Woomble and a quote from the organisers.

OK, so they don't say we rocked the Kasbah, but neither do they say that we sucked wet farts from the arseholes of dead pigeons. And in my book that's a result. But according to David Robinson of the Scotsman:

"...the crime writing event with tartan noir writers Allan Guthrie and Stuart MacBride was a little too self-satisfied for my tastes"

So that's us told ;}# Now I have it on good authority that Mr Robinson is the kind of person who habitually wears sandals (and no, I'm not kidding -- though I have no idea where he stands on the subject of socks with his footwear), but let's not allow that to cloud our opinions of the man. I'm sure they're very nice sandals, if you like that sort of thing. What's wrong with wearing sandals, after all? I wear slipper round the house all the time: does that make me a bad person? Well, possibly... but one great thing that you can say about slippers is that you're much less likely to kick someone to death while wearing them. Unless you do it very, very gently.

You know, given that I spend most of my life sat on my arse in front of a computer, slippers are my default mode of footwear. I spend more time in slippers than I do in anything else. I am Slipperboy! Chief Slipperperson of the Slipperpeople. I even shuffle when I walk (because slippers have a nasty habit of flying off into the cat's dinner bowl if you don't), and that's why I'm in no position to make fun of someone else's footwear. Unless they're wearing black shoes/sandals and white socks, in which case they're cock-weasels of the highest order.

Anyway, where was I...? Ah, right: I have to confess that yes, I was pretty damn satisfied with how the event went. We went out to give people a good time and they seemed to have one (at least Shona of the green piratical T-shirt had fun). So maybe the problem is that we didn't give Mr Robinson what he expected? Which is always a problem: expectus-interruptus.

Perhaps he didn't like the whole non-standard reading thing? (because it was very non-standard) If so, I take full blame for the self-satisfied nature of the event. It wasn't Mr Guthrie's fault. He's very serious when not being led astray by a bearded Aberdonian. But when he does get led astray he's a seriously funny guy. Saucy minx that he is. However, if there's one thing he's not it's smug. Any smugness must have been mine and mine alone.

So we have decided to say sod it: we're going to do the same thing, slightly differently, at the Edinburgh Book Festival later this year. So be warned: if you don't like the thought of a pair of self-satisfied people poncing about on stage and making strange noises, don't come! It'll only upset you.

Now, where did I put my slippers? I think someone from FedEx needs a long, slow kicking...

* He likes me to call him that, because he's not the tallest person in the world and it makes him feel good about himself.

Gouda, gouda, gouda!

Ah yes, last night was Eurovision night at Casa Del TBFKAGB* and mucho fondue was consumed by all and sundry whilst the very worst Europe had to offer sang, wailed and strutted their oh-so-funkless stuff on the telly. But then that's what large quantities of wine were invented for. And I thought it was great that Serbia won -- not because I liked the song, but because their lead singer looks like the bastard love child of Liza Minnelli and Wee Jimmy Cranky.

But an other, less cheese-related event also took place yesterday: me and Orcadian Bestselling Author Allan 'Action Man' Guthrie traumatising a bunch of poor souls at the Aberdeen Word 07 festival. The really pain in the arse thing about doing an event with Allan is that the bastard knows loads of stuff and can remember it when people ask him questions. So he gives these erudite answers about the origins of 'Noir', while I'm reduced to making jokes about his testicles. Mind you, at least I can say I got 250 people to laugh at Allan Guthrie's bollocks: that's something to be proud of.

And I have to salute the bravery of the people who volunteered for the 'Audience Participation Segment', especially as they didn't know what they were letting themselves in for. Well, I say 'volunteered', but 'press-ganged' is maybe closer to the mark.

From feedback after the event it seems to have gone well. And as such, Mr Guthrie and I may be hauling out our double act for a second shameful outing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Just remember: if you make eye contact you deserve all you get.

* The Brother Formerly Known As Googling Brother -- for some reason he's taken to calling himself that in imitation of diminutive popster Prince.

Conga! Conga! Conga!

I want to say a big thank you to everyone who turned up at the Union Bridge branch of Waterstones in Aberdeen yesterday lunchtime. Bleeding heck! I was expecting a handful of people, scattered randomly throughout the two hours I was going to be there. Maybe a couple asking where the toilets were, or if Costa upstairs were still serving coffee. What I wasn't expecting was a queue that wrapped all the way round the shop and a three-hour signathon!

Which was both humbling and extremely flattering in an ego-swelling, trousers and cheesecake fashion. If freaky.

When I showed up at the bookshop -- 15 minutes early to say hello to all the groovy dudes and dudesses at the bookshop -- I could see a line of people all clutching a copy of BROKEN SKIN. Aha, thinks I, this must be people buying books for the signing... how weird, seeing all those people buying the same book... Anyway, I blithely wandered off downstairs into the bowels of the shop to sign some of the pre-bought stuff. It was only when I came back -- crack on the stroke of noon -- that I realised the line wasn't the purchasing queue. They were waiting to get stuff signed. Oops... I could have started fifteen minutes earlier and saved a lot of people the extra wait.

Everyone was extremely nice, which is not bad going when you think that some people were waiting in line for over an hour. One nice lady had even managed to read all the way up to chapter eight in the time it took to get to the front of the queue.

And all the time I just couldn't believe that so many people would want to come out and say "Hi."

Afterwards She Who Must Be Allowed To Roam The Shops While Her Husband Is Being Freaked Out, and I went for a wee libation at Archibald Simpson (the pub, not the person -- he died a long, long time ago), then back to a friend's house for wine and chitchat, then on to the Light of Bengal (just five minutes from this theatre) for a slap-up curry. Hurrah!

Anyway, thank you again to everyone who came along yesterday. And I hope you remember: once the book's signed, you can't take it back ;}#

Groupies

Today is the day of the grand sign-athon. Or hopefully a grand sign-athon -- I was plugging the signing yesterday on Northsound -- I'll settle for a wee bit of signage. A steady trickle... Just as long as today doesn't involve me sitting on my bum behind a big pile of books, pretending I don't care that no bugger's turned up. Ah paranoia, it's the gift that keeps on giving.

Another thing that keeps on giving are those lovely people at the Crime and Investigation Network (SKY channel 531, Virgin 237) who've got five copies of BROKEN SKIN to give away!

Plus a small dent in the worry-wagon has been delivered in the way of a nice review:

DAILY SPORT

Grim, gritty and great fun.

MACBRIDE is anxious that his third Aberdeen-based crimer won't sell as well as his first two.
He shouldn't fret. Fans of DS Logan McRae will be queuing to drive this into the bestseller lists.The Granite City is under siege again. A serial rapist gives the chaotic rag-bag of near-crazy characters that constitute the force a hard time, not to mention the bondage community.The characters on the job make for solid entertainment, not least the full-on lezza Inspector Steel.McRae stands out like a beacon of sanity, yet his life is far from straightforward. Grim, gritty and great fun.

John Wise

Thank you John, you're a star.

Everyone seems to be coming out in favour of DI Steel at the moment. Maybe I should just kill off Insch and go with her instead? That would teach the sweetie-munching sod.

Anyway, I must now go and make myself pretty for my public. God knows it takes enough work...

To the primpmobile!

Polluting the airwaves since quarter past eleven

I'm off into town tomorrow to strut my bearded stuff on Northsound Radio. From 11:15 till he kicks me off the air, I'll be on Damien McLeod's Mid-Morning Show, shamelessly plugging BROKEN SKIN and the lunchtime signing spectacular at Waterstones Union Bride in Aberdeen on Saturday. (see -- that's how you blatantly plug something)

You can even listen live from the Northsound website. You know. If you want to...

With Evil Portent...

"My God!" said Caruthers, staggering to a halt by the open hospital door. "We're too late!"

Theodore let out a startled cry, the stake and crucifix falling from his numb fingers as he caught his first glimpse of the evil one through the little round pane of glass. "The world! The world is DOOMED!"

Caruthers slapped him. "Damn it man, pull yourself together. We have to think of something!"

"There's nothing we can do! It was fortold by Nostradamus... He has arrived and we are all damned."

"Bloody hell," if there was one thing Caruthers had learned in his time fighting the forces of evil alongside young Theodore MacDougal, it was that his grasp of ancient prophesy was second to none. If Theodore said they were doomed, they were doomed. "I knew I should have had the full English breakfast at the B&B this morning. What's the point of having a low cholesterol level when the whole earth is about to be levelled by the hordes of evil?" He aimed a kick at a fallen bulb of garlic, sending it spinning through the maternity ward. "Are you sure this is what Nostradamus meant? The end of the world?"

Theodore nodded. "Positive. Nostradamus is never wrong. We're all doomed..."

Avignon Monastery of the Holly Seal Of Christ: Fifteen Sixty Three.

"Well I don't know, do I?" Brother Simon sat back on his hard wooden stool and rubbed his ink-stained palms across his eyes. "Can we not get some more sodding candles in here? Like trying to write inside a nun..."

"Well it's got to mean something, doesn't it?" said Brother Arbuthnot, pointing at the stretched badger entrails. "Looks a bit like sausages."

"You know, when I was wee I thought, I know: I'll sod off and become a monk. That'll be fun. Booze, women, fast horses, gambling, natty brown robes and a flash haircut... And now look at us."

"Come on, cheer up! Only five more prophesies to go and we can go get some boiled cabbage water for tea! God, I love boiled cabbage water night."

Brother Simon stood, carefully pulled back the sleeve of his scratchy brown robe, then smacked his companion over the back of the head.

THWACK!

"Owww! What was that for?"

"What do the notes say?"

"That really hurt!"

"You want another one?"

Brother Arbuthnot grabbed the scrap of paper off his desk and peered at it in the dim candlelight. "Something, something... An eagle? Or it might be a beagle. His handwriting's bloody appalling."

"Brilliant. 'Something, something eagle something.' Calls himself a bloody seer."

"How about... Ermm... March the fifth, Ares, you will meet a hairy man and he'll steal your chocolate bar. Lucky number is sixteen, lucky newspaper: tabloid."

THWACK!

"Owww! Stop doing that!"

"Idiot. It's got to be more arsey," Brother Simon pointed at the three cardinal rules, hung on the wall of their bare cell. Rule one: thy meaning must be sodding obscure. Rule two: if you understand rule one, it's not obscure enough. Rule three: whoever's birthday it is, buys the cakes. "'A hairy bloody man will steal your chocolate bar'..."

Brother Arbuthnot flinched. "Don't hit me!"

"No, what you want is more:" Striking a dramatic pose. "In the third month the Sun rising, the Boar and Leopard on the field of Mars to fight: The tired Leopard raises its eye to the heavens, sees an Eagle playing around the Sun."

Brother Simon let his arms drop back by his side, then shot Arbuthnot a wink. "See, that's how you prognosticate. Nostradamus can kiss my hairy, tonsured arse."

"Shhhh!"

"Come on, I'm on a roll here. What's next?"

"Something about whelks and the end of days and the coming of the dark lord. Oh, and we have to chip in for the biscuit kitty. Someone's been helping themselves to the custard creams."

"OK... OK... whelks and sea and darkness..." Another pose. "Great Po, great evil will be received through Gauls, vain terror to the maritime Lion: People will pass by the sea in infinite numbers, Without a quarter of a million escaping."

"That's Eastbourne again, right?"

"Yup."

"How come every time we have a portent of great evil coming, you pick on Eastbourne?"

Brother Simon shrugged. "Dunno. Just seems to fit somehow... Still, look on the bright side, we'll be well dead by the time whatever it is arrives."

Four hundred and forty four years later John Rickards Junior is born. Coincidence? I think not...

V-Day

Yes, by the time you read this it will be May the third! Well, unless you live in some strange part of the world not tied to Greenwich mean time* in which case you probably can't vote in the Scottish elections and I don't have to be nice to you. Or kiss your scabrous, snot-crusted offspring.

In an effort to do some last-minute canvassing I've been out daubing obscenities on everyone else's posters. So now, instead of saying "Vote Labour!", "Re-elect Lib Dems!", "Conservatives for Scotland" or even "Vot Fur the BNP, Youse fucks!" they now say things like, "We Eat Babies!", "Screw You, Pensioners!", "Fuck-Weaselry Guaranteed!" and "Eat Shit And Die, Voterfuckers!" It's a little underhand, but then that's what politics is all about. Being shitty to one another and lying out your back teeth. And wearing really nasty suits.

What? Of course I believe in the system! How dare you...

Anyway, now that I have successfully scuppered any other bastard's chance of winning the election tomorrow, I shall set out my cabinet of electoral loveliness for you to vote for. Or suffer the consequences.

Supreme Ruler of Scotland: Me
Lord High Godmother in charge of caravans and other bloody annoying bastards who need to be stricken from our roads: Val McDermid
Home Secretary (must wear short skirt and be chased round a desk): John Rickards
Chancellor of the Exchequer and holder of the hairy sporran: Mark Billingham
Minister for Health: Simon Kernick (a bottle of gin for every toddler!)
Minister for Socks, Beards and Barbecues: Tamara Jones
Minister for Press Relations: Jim Winters
Minister for Getting Them Out For The Baying Masses: Agent Phil (who does, on regular occasions do his 'Churchill Looking Startled' impersonations, until someone calls the police)

Remember: today VOTE MACBRIDE If you don't then you approve of all sorts of unspecified nasty stuff and probably have no friends. And everyone laughs at you behind your back. And you smell. Of badger jobbies.

You know it makes sense!

* That's right, we have an official time to be mean to people.

Not sign of a kicking... yet

In a fit of masochism I went off Googling* for reviews of BROKEN SKIN and much to my surprise none of the ones I found call me a degenerate pervert who should be treated in much the same way as Barry Scott.

According to the inestimably loveable Russell James at the SHOTS Mag website:
Outrageous, disgraceful but gobsmackingly glorious.
If an American company crossed Hill Street Blues with the Keystone Cops, had it scripted by the Sopranos team and set the action in Aberdeen, they might come near the scatological brouhaha that is a Stuart MacBride story. But I still think he'd do it better.

The delightful Karen Chisholm at Aust Crime Fiction:
If you're a fan of the no holds barred, character driven Police Procedural, then you should definitely read BROKEN SKIN and both earlier books if they've somehow passed you by. Gruesome subject matter delivered with deftness is the mark of this author's books. Savage, dry humour is the other common factor.

And on Gateway it's a Star Title:
DS Logan McRae is rapidly becoming required reading for crime aficionados, and is certainly starting to give Rebus a good run for his money. This is strong, gritty and realistic, cutting-edge detective drama, told in masterly fashion by someone whose reputation is rocketing.

Ah, you is all lovely people!

Of course, this no holds barred, lubricated love-fest isn't likely to last very long, but I'm going to enjoy it while it does. And then stick my fingers in my ears and go "Lalalalalala!"

I may be demented and delusional, but I'm honest about it.

And why am I posting this blatant slice of self-promotional ego polishing? Because it's May the first, which is technically my deadline for delivering Book Number The Fourth. And as that's got as much chance of happening as say... my urinating on Kate Moss if she was on fire, I suppose you could say that this was a shallow attempt to appease the angry gods of HarperCollins, so that they might not smite me with their mighty spoon-wielding editorial Berber ninjas.

Worth a try, isn't it?

* Technically one is supposed to say 'I used the Google search engine' so as not to erode the Google brand name, but to hell with that for a game off monkeys. I was using Google, therefore I did Google. I am a Googler, though not too often as, obviously, it makes you go blind.